Well, it’s official now. The account was not reactivated due to a glitch or an error. It was in fact due to the email conversation held with Christina, the Facebook customer service representative. An email confirmation of this arrived today.

From: Paul from Facebook:

Hi,

After further review, we are going to allow you to continue to use this account under the name you have listed. Your account is presently active. Let me know if you have any trouble using it. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Experiment over? That just did not seem right. Something had to be done. A string of emails followed.

To: info@facebook.com (6/14):

Your account has been disabled by an administrator. Please contact info@facebook.com for more information.

From: Christina from Facebook (6/15):

Hey,

Fake names are a violation of our Terms of Use. If you would like to use this profile again, just get back to us with your real name and we will reactivate the account for you.

Thanks for contacting Facebook.

—
Christina
Customer service representative
Facebook Team

To: Christina from Facebook (6/15):

I apologize for violating your Terms of Use. However, the Terms of Use (or any other section of the website) do not specify what criteria is used to determine whether a name is fake or real. Please clarify this for me.

Also, while a member of Facebook is sent an email about most events, such as a friend request or a wall posting, no alert is sent out upon termination of the account. Why am I expected to respect your rules while you fail to show me even minimal courtesy?

Thank you in advance for addressing my concerns.

From: Christina from Facebook (6/20):

Hi,

Please provide me with your real name and I’ll be more than happy to reactivate your account.

Thanks,

—
Christina
Customer service representative
Facebook Team

To: Christina from Facebook (6/22):

I fully understand your request.

What I need from you is the criteria used for determining whether a name is fake or real. I would like the information necessary to avoid going through this process again.

I can easily find numerous fake accounts on Facebook. I would like to know why my account was removed and those are still active. If for some reason you are not aware of their existence and I provide you with a list of account IDs I am referring to, will those accounts be removed?

Thank you in advance for addressing my concerns.

From: Christina from Facebook (6/26):

Hi,

Your profile was reported to us and upon investigation was deemed fake. To avoid going through this process again please provide me with your real name.

Thanks!

—
Christina
Customer service representative
Facebook Team

To: Christina from Facebook (6/27):

Hi Christina,

I feel like we are going in a circle here. I will try to rephrase my previous question one more time. Please answer it this time.

How do you report a profile and what is necessary to have it removed? I would like to help you in your quest to keep Facebook “real”.

Thank you.

From: Christina from Facebook (7/5):

Hi,

Any user can report a profile, picture, group, event, message etc by clicking on the ‘report’ tab on that page. Upon further investigation it was found that the account was fake. The email address does not match the registered name.

Thanks,

—
Christina
Customer service representative
Facebook Team

To: Christina from Facebook (7/5):

Hi.

Thank you for clarifying the procedure for reporting fake profiles.

The email address that was listed on my Facebook account and the one I used to sign in to Facebook is the same one I have been using to correspond with you. Which part of it does not match?

So far you have not provided me with any evidence that would indicate that my profile is “fake” in any way. I would like to have my account restored until you can prove otherwise.

Thank you.

The world may never know if it was due to this conversation or some glitch in the system, but the profile was reactivated a few days ago. An apology is certainly in order if so many emails were necessary to get to this point.

President Lehman’s fake facebook profile has been removed, while Skorton’s reportedly non-fake profile remains. But will the blog continue? And just who is redprez?

Luckily one of those questions can now be answered. After a lengthy email conversation with Facebook, Jeffrey Lehman ’77 is back for an encore. But how did this happen? And why did it take so long? Stay tuned for answers to those questions.

It has been over eight months since the last post was made. Much has changed since then. Exhibit A: Thefacebook is now just Facebook. Exhibit B: The next Cornell president was finally selected. There is really no need to keep going.

I wish I could make this more amusing, but this is a sad time. One week ago today, on July 1, Hunter Rawlings assumed the position of Interim President of Cornell University. He will serve until a new President assumes offices. In his message, he wrote:

The past few weeks have been an unsettling period. President Lehman’s resignation was an unfortunate event for many reasons, and it has generated lingering questions in our community because it came suddenly and without extensive explanation. As you may have read, President Lehman and the Board of Trustees have agreed that his and the institution’s best interests will be served by foregoing more open discussion. Despite the understandable frustration that creates, I am confident that they have acted in the university’s interests.

The resignation news left the Cornell community with many questions. Many of them will probably never be answered. The future of Jeffrey Lehman’s Thefacebook profile is not one of those. It will cease to be active. For the sake of historical value, it will not be deleted, but any new friend requests will be denied. More importantly, the link to this blog will be added to the profile. This will be the final change. Everyone deserves to see the information presented here and perhaps learn from it. This was an interesting experiment, but everything must come to an end. I surely hope no one will be too disappointed.

Now may be the best time to look back. Jeffrey Lehman’s profile was created in May 2004. Almost exactly one year ago, on July 5, 2004, it received a first message. Since then, many more would be sent. Many friend requests would be sent as well. When the last friend was accepted today, the friend count was at 1616 in addition to 22 at schools other than Cornell. Given that this blog is now very public, the friend count may drop a bit.

On a side note, this high-profile profile revealed at least one flaw plaguing Thefacebook. As you gain more friends, the number becomes less accurate. If you compare the counts on “My Profile” and “My Friends”, the numbers may differ. As I climbed over 1000, the difference reached double digits. And in case you are wondering, out-of-school friends were not overlooked when comparing the numbers.

To sum things up, the Jeffrey Lehman profile is done. It’s over. This blog will continue its existence and new posts may be added. If you are really interested in this matter, feel free to come back. If you have something to say, leave a comment here or drop me a line at redprez(at)gmail.com.

No profile on Thefacebook is complete without friends, especially for someone as important to the Cornell community as Jeffrey Lehman. In the following weeks I shall send friend requests to various students. I do not intend to become a friend with everyone, but this experiment must start somewhere. I have no idea what will happen in the long run. We’ll see.